In its report to the US Securities and Trade Commission, Meta threatened to block Facebook and Instagram services in Europe. The plan is a reaction to Mark Zuckerberg's company's disapproval of personal data protection rules made by the European Union (EU).
The new EU law forces all companies to process user data on local servers located in Europe while Meta sends user data from Europe to its US servers.
Now two EU officials - Robert Habeck (German Economy Minister) and Bruno Le Maire (French Finance Minister) - responded to the threat and kept asking Meta to comply with the new regulations or its social media platforms would be banned across Europe. They also have no problem if Meta blocks Facebook and Instagram services in Europe.
"I've been without Facebook for four years and life is amazing. The European Union is a huge internal market with so much economic power that if we act in unity, we won't be intimidated by something like this," said Robert Habeck. Bloomberg.
Bruno Le Maire added that "people will live very well without Facebook" while also stressing that the EU will not back down from protecting the rights of its citizens.
I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we will live very well without Facebook. The digital giant must understand that the European continent will fight and assert its sovereignty," said Bruno Le Maire.
With the latest comments we can see the EU's perspective on the issue of protecting users' personal data. So far there has been no response from Meta, but of course they must quickly make a decision. We'll see how the parent company Facebook reacts and what will happen next.